THE ENTERPRISE--A LOT TO CATCH UP ON

AFTER BEING GONE TO THE BRITISH ISLES FOR 2 WEEKS, AND WITH MINIMAL NEWS OR EMAIL, IT'S HARD TO KNOW WHERE TO START

Based on just a couple of conversations with Brits, they are still somewhat enchanted with Obama's rhetoric--and since Europeans are accustomed to unemployment  over 10% (It was 15% in Ireland when we visited there)…they still favor him.  I think they are afraid Romney will be more like Bush, and be "tough on them," rather than conciliatory.  (That's not a bad thing to be.  Europeans have long felt "superior" to Americans--after all, most Americans ancestors left those countries for "the colonies" as one Brit tour guide referred to the USA even now in 2012!

THEN I CAME HOME TO FIND THAT THE ASTOUNDING LIES BEING ADVERTISED BY THE OBAMA CAMPAIGN SUPPORTERS HAD REACHED NEW LOWS

Enough has been said about the ad that tries to imply that Mitt Romney was part of a man's demise (even though he admits Bain tried to buy them out--in a condescending tone he says it)--and then the worst of all, infers that the wife's death was somehow due to Romney and Bain's involvement.  Blatant is not a strong enough word for this scurrilous kind of campaigning--and Obama will still not apologize or distance himself from it.  This man is a disgrace as the sitting president.  Even his major contributors are now admitting that he is distant and unreachable to the point of being rude to them!  Deserves to be exposed--and defeated in Nov.

A FRIEND ASKED ME WHAT I THINK ABOUT MITT ROMNEY'S CHOICE OF PAUL RYAN FOR HIS RUNNING MATE & HOW HE WOULD HELP OR HURT IN OH & FL

(My friend lives in FL and I live in OH.)  Rather than rewrite it many times, here was my response earlier today:

"I am fine with Ryan. He's fiery at times and solid as a rock on facts and reasons.  I might have liked Rubio better, and my only concern is taking Ryan out of a key House spot--but keeping Rubio and Portman in the Senate is probably more important!  Thank God he didn't pick Pawlenty!
I don't think OH will be hurt by this choice. May not help much in OH, since swing voters in OH still are moderates--a carryover from OHs blue collar roots.  His down to earth explanations of things will be a big plus everywhere since Romney has been accused (wrongly) of offering too few plans/details about what he'd do and why.
If FL voters will pay attention, they'll see that Ryan's Medicare plans are good or them, since most of his proposed changes are for the under 50 group. Obama is simply ignoring the fact that Medicare is insolvent (within 20 years.)  That is not good for anyone!
Best part of his is hat it sucks the Obama cronies into factual budget battles and concentrates on economic issues--where Obama will have to rely on trickery and demagoguery/class warfare--big time!
How many Americans will think about whether they really want 4 more (Obama) years of slow growth, high unemployment and soaring deficits?  America will never recover from that! We will see if enough Americans are fed up with Obama's lies, phony promises, and economic failure."

BARACK OBAMA SEEMS TO BE LIKE A "BROKEN RECORD"--DOESN'T EVEN CARE ENOUGH TO USE DIFFERENT PHRASES--AND OTHER COUNTRIES ARE OBVIOUSLY STARTING TO NOTICE

WATCH THIS--YOU WILL BE ASTOUNDED:  http://youtube.googleapis.com/v/erYpXzE9Pxs&

But strangely, they still seem to like him. Of course part of this was that they hated Bush so much, and unless you actually compare what Obama says to what he does, you might not notice that he is a phony!

I AGREE WITH THIS…AND WOULD NOT STOP HERE…I'D DEMAND MUCH MORE FROM OBAMA'S BACKGROUND

Trump: Romney Must Turn Tables on Democrats Over Tax Returns

Tuesday, 07 Aug 2012 08:00 AM  By Forrest Jones

        Mitt Romney should turn the tables on Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who clams the Republican presidential hopeful dodged taxes for 10 years, said billionaire real-estate mogul Donald Trump.  Romney should agree to release tax returns going back a decade, provided President Barack Obama releases passport, college records and other information demanded by Republicans.

        "If I were Romney, I would say very simply I will release my returns, which are 100 percent legit, if you release the information that we want," Trump told CNBC. 

"He spent $4 million trying to hide lots of different things that he's done, whether it's his passport records, whether it's his college applications and college records," Trump added.  "If I were Romney, I would do this, I will release my returns if you release the records that you've been trying to shield for the last four years."

        Romney has released tax returns in the past, although the problem is higher earnings give political adversaries data to extract information and use it against him even if returns were filed properly.  "The problem with a complex tax return is you can look at it and you can nitpick it to death, and if you release ten more years — he's released two years — they'll nitpick it and find tiny statements made in the return and make a big deal out of it," Trump said.   "It is a little bit unfair. Obama has a very simple tax return. He made nothing. He doesn't have much to report." 

        Romney, meanwhile, has lashed out against Reid, who hasn't revealed the source of his claims. "I have paid taxes every year and a lot of taxes, a lot of taxes," Romney said in Las Vegas, according to ABC News.  "Harry is simply wrong, and that's why I'm so anxious for him to give us the names of the people who have put this forward. I wouldn't be at all surprised to hear the names are people from the White House or the Obama campaign or who knows where they're coming from," Romney added.  "Harry Reid really has to put up or shut up," Romney said.

PLEASE READ MY LATEST FORBES POST.  HERE'S THE LINK TO IT

http://www.forbes.com/sites/prospernow/2012/08/08/america-in-paralysis-false-optimism/

The four paragraphs below are a Forbes reader's comments about the post--and the situation...

I think you have captured the business environment perfectly with this statement: "Businesses are reluctant to invest since uncertainty about taxes, weak economic growth, burdensome regulations and the anti-business sentiment of the Obama administration, remain as high as ever. Obama has repeatedly circumvented Congress and the Constitution by acts of administrative fiat (Via HHS, NLRB, EEOC, Justice Dept., etc.) to add to these growth inhibitors."

 

It is tough to make any business decisions in such an uncertain environment. It is imperative that business leaders see carefully constructed plans and policies that clearly articulate how to get America back to work. To your description of Paralysis and FUD I would added "lack of urgency". The current Administration and Congress have demonstrated complete incompetence towards developing such policies and plans that will create jobs without adding to the deficit.  

On the other hand, Romney has put forth a somewhat workable proposal called "59 Policy Proposals That Will Get America Back to Work". Unfortunately, besides being presented above and beyond the comprehension of the average American, it has been lost in all of the noise of the current Presidential race.  Romney, a quant by trade, needs to think and act more like a marketer and take a cue from Herman Cain's 9-9-9. He needs to revisit this stack of proposals and reduce the 59 down to the 5-15  things we can do NOW to create jobs and drive that message home. 

It is apparent that the current administration's priority is re-election and it clearly doesn't have a plan to "get America back to work" so they will have difficulty in responding at this late stage of the game. Unless the business community can be convinced by Romney, who does have the skills to execute on economic policies, that his plan will provide some economic boost, I am afraid that the FUD and paralysis will continue.

I AM AFRAID THAT THE "FUD SYNDROME" WILL CONTINUE TOO!

THEN HOW CAN ROMNEY BEAT OBAMA, AND "SAVE AMERICA?"

Charles Krauthammer offers a pretty reasonable set of ideas: The case against reelection

By Charles Krauthammer, Published: August 9 (before the Paul Ryan announcement)

There are two ways to run against Barack Obama: stewardship or ideology. You can run against his record or you can run against his ideas.

The stewardship case is pretty straightforward: the worst recovery in U.S. history, 42 consecutive months of 8-plus percent unemployment, declining economic growth — all achieved at a price of an additional $5 trillion of accumulated debt.

The ideological case is also simple. Just play in toto (and therefore in context) Obama’s Roanoke riff telling small-business owners: “You didn’t build that.” Real credit for your success belongs not to you — you think you did well because of your smarts and sweat? he asked mockingly — but to government that built the infrastructure without which you would have nothing.

Play it. Then ask: Is that the governing philosophy you want for this nation?

Mitt Romney’s preferred argument, however, is stewardship. Are you better off today than you were $5 trillion ago? Look at the wreckage around you. This presidency is a failure. I’m a successful businessman. I know how to fix things. Elect me, etc. etc.

Easy peasy, but highly risky. If you run against Obama’s performance in contrast to your own competence, you stake your case on persona. Is that how you want to compete against an opponent who is not just more likable and immeasurably cooler but spending millions to paint you as an unfeeling, out-of-touch, job-killing, private-equity plutocrat?

The ideological case, on the other hand, is not just appealing to a center-right country with twice as many conservatives as liberals, it is also explanatory. It underpins the stewardship argument. Obama’s ideology — and the program that followed — explains the failure of these four years.  What program? Obama laid it out boldly in a series of major addresses during the first months of his presidency. The roots of the nation’s crisis, he declared, were systemic. Fundamental change was required. He had come to deliver it. Hence his signature legislation:

First, the $831 billion stimulus that was going to “reinvest” in America and bring unemployment below 6 percent. We know about the unemployment. And the investment? Obama loves to cite great federal projects such as the Hoover Dam and the interstate highway system. Fine. Name one thing of any note created by Obama’s Niagara of borrowed money. A modernized electric grid? Ports dredged to receive the larger ships soon to traverse a widened Panama Canal? Nothing of the sort. Solyndra, anyone?

Second, radical reform of health care that would reduce its ruinously accelerating cost: “Put simply,” he said, “our health-care problem is our deficit problem” — a financial hemorrhage drowning us in debt.

Except that Obamacare adds to spending. The Congressional Budget Office reports that Obamacare will incur $1.68 trillion of new expenditures in its first decade. To say nothing of the price of the uncertainty introduced by an impossibly complex remaking of one-sixth of the economy — discouraging hiring and expansion as trillions of investable private-sector dollars remain sidelined.

The third part of Obama’s promised transformation was energy. His cap-and-trade federal takeover was rejected by his own Democratic Senate. So the war on fossil fuels has been conducted unilaterally by bureaucratic fiat. Regulations that will kill coal. A no-brainer pipeline (Keystone) rejected lest Canadian oil sands be burned. (China will burn them instead.) A drilling moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico that a federal judge severely criticized as illegal.  That was the program — now so unpopular that Obama barely mentions it. Obamacare got exactly two lines in this year’s State of the Union address. Seen any ads touting the stimulus? The drilling moratorium? Keystone?

Ideas matter. The 2010 election, the most ideological since 1980, saw the voters resoundingly reject a Democratic Party that was relentlessly expanding the power, spending, scope and reach of government.  It’s worse now. Those who have struggled to create a family business, a corner restaurant, a medical practice won’t take kindly to being told that their success is a result of government-built roads and bridges.

In 1988, Michael Dukakis famously said, “This election is not about ideology; it’s about competence.” He lost. If Republicans want to win, Obama’s deeply revealing, teleprompter-free you-didn’t-build-that confession of faith needs to be hung around his neck until Election Day. The third consecutive summer-of-recovery-that-never-came is attributable not just to Obama being in over his head but, even more important, to what’s in his head: a government-centered vision of the economy and society, and the policies that flow from it.

Four years of that and this is what you get.  Make the case and you win the White House.

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DON'T BE MISLED IF THE JOBS NUMBERS BUMP UP SLIGHTLY IN EARLY SEPT. AND MAYBE EVEN AGAIN IN EARLY OCT.

Seasonal hiring is typical.  Watch to see what revisions are made to the past several months numbers.  Nearly every jobs report over the past three years have been revised downward later.  If you already read my Forbes post, you realize that Obama's claims of progress are clearly bogus.  However, that doesn't mean that smart businesses can't do well, even in this kind of anti-business, slow growth, environment.  It just takes more skill and effort, and then the gains are less than they should be.

IF YOU HAVE NOT READ HOPE IS NOT A STRATEGY I URGE YOU TO DO SO.  IF YOU HAVE, I ENCOURAGE YOU TO SEND COPIES TO FRIENDS AND RELATIVES AS GIFTS.  THIS IS ESPECIALLY TRUE IF YOU HOPE TO CHANGE THEIR THINKING ABOUT SUPPORTING BARACK OBAMA.

UNTIL NEXT WEEK, (and thankful to be staying in the USA for a while)

Best, JOHN